Episode 263: Enhanced Regulations and Tools for All People During Disasters in Evacuation with Daniel Nilsson and Kevin Frank

Episode notes

How can we improve evacuation systems for people with movement disabilities?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

The challenges of designing evacuation systems for people with movement disabilities

The gap between regulations for accessibility and evacuation

How occupant evacuation elevators and areas of refuge can improve safety during evacuations

Hear from Daniel Nilsson - a Civil and Natural Resources Engineering (CNRE) professor at the University of Canterbury - and Kevin Frank - the Senior Fire Engineer at Fire and Emergency NZ .

Daniel and Kevin talk about their work on designing evacuation systems for people with movement disabilities. They highlight the disparity between regulations for building accessibility and those for evacuation, pointing out the responsibility of building owners to find suitable evacuation methods.

The discussion covers innovative solutions like occupant evacuation elevators and designated areas of refuge, stressing the importance of clear communication to ensure these systems are used effectively.

Daniel and Kevin also share their co-creational development process, using virtual reality to gather input from end users and develop design tools that cater to their needs. The conversation also touches on the role of the Institute of Fire Engineers in unifying and spreading knowledge throughout the global fire service.

So take a listen to hear what they have to share!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro from the IFE booth at AFAC 2024
2. 0:53 Daniel Nilsson and Kevin Frank join
3. 1:35 Rules for getting in, not for getting out
4. 2:16 Designing for the whole population
5. 3:39 Changing the mindset about elevators in a fire
6. 6:07 Co-creation and bringing VR to people's homes
7. 7:33 What it looks like in operational practice
8. 9:19 Where the VR model stands and next milestones
9. 10:09 What the IFE is and why it matters
10. 11:32 Final words: don't just do something, stand there
11. 12:28 Design buildings for the people
12. 13:06 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the gap between accessibility and evacuation regulations?

Daniel Nilsson explains that legislation has many rules about accessibility so people with movement disabilities can get into buildings, but when it comes to evacuation, the same rules do not exist. It is up to the building owner to find ways of evacuating people.

Hear it at 1:47

What are occupant evacuation elevators?

Daniel Nilsson says occupant evacuation elevators are not standard elevators. They are extra safe and designed to work in a fire situation, allowing people with movement disabilities to evacuate safely instead of being told never to use elevators.

Hear it at 2:33

How does the project use virtual reality for evacuation research?

Daniel Nilsson describes developing a VR environment where people with movement restrictions, such as wheelchair users, evacuate a virtual building. Researchers interview them during the experience to learn their information needs, then refine the system based on feedback in an iterative co-creational process.

Hear it at 3:47

Why use virtual reality instead of just talking to people?

Daniel Nilsson says that unless you are immersed in the environment, you are only expressing behavioral intent, which does not guarantee real behavior. Being in VR and seeing the actual geometry and systems makes it easier for participants to interpret the situation and give useful feedback.

Hear it at 6:31

What is Daniel Nilsson's advice on building design?

Design buildings for the people, not people for the buildings. Evacuation systems should be intuitive and understood without prior training, but that is not always done well. It requires understanding how people behave and interpret situations.

Hear it at 12:28

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 263 transcript

Enhanced Regulations and Tools for All People During Disasters in Evacuation with Daniel Nilsson and Kevin Frank

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Daniel Nilsson, Kevin Frank

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to a mini Smart Firefighting podcast series, recorded live at the Institute of Fire Engineers booth during the 2024 AFAC Show Down Under in Sydney, Australia. Throughout these conversations, we dive into critical issues like fire safety, emerging technologies, diversity in the fire service, and innovative solutions for emergency response. fascinating insights from leaders around the world on how we can build a safer and more resilient future. Daniel Nilsson, professor at University of Canterbury and Kevin Frank, senior fire engineer at Fire and Emergency New Zealand explored the design of evacuation systems for people with movement disabilities. They discussed the gap between accessibility regulations and evacuation procedures and share innovations like evacuation elevators and virtual reality can improve safety. Daniel Nilsson and Kevin Frank how you both doing today?

[0:59] Kevin Frank: Good, yeah very good.

[1:01] Kevin Sofen: So what brings you guys to AFAC and what are you guys doing here today?

[1:04] Kevin Frank: So I'm from Fire and Emergency New Zealand and we've got quite a large delegation here so we're kind of one of the partners I guess is it's the Australasian Fire Authorities I guess we're the New Zealand Fire Authority so I guess that's the main reason why I'm here just part of the FENZ delegation.

[1:19] Daniel Nilsson: And I'm from University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. And I'm here presenting on a project that is currently ongoing in New Zealand, looking at things like evacuation for people with movement disabilities. And we're also looking at digital tools for fire engineering.

[1:35] Kevin Sofen: One thing that you said, as we were just discussing before we hit record, was there are a lot of rules for getting in the building, but not many for getting out of the building. What do you mean by that?

[1:47] Daniel Nilsson: Well, that's true. The thing is, when it comes to people with movement disabilities in particular, since that's the population we're looking at, we have in the legislation, we have a lot of rules about accessibility. So people should get into the buildings. But when it comes to evacuation, we do not have the same rules. And it's, I guess, up to the building owner to find ways of evacuating people. Whereas getting into the building, that's very clear in the regulations, how, what you need to do.

[2:16] Kevin Sofen: Okay. And then the whole you're saying of what we need to do and ultimately how we are designing. You'd mentioned kind of this whole needing to kind of, whether it's starting from the ground zero or kind of reverse engineering for the population. How are we, how should we approach this idea of designing for that population?

[2:33] Daniel Nilsson: Well, one of the things that has developed in the last couple of years is that we've introduced some evacuation solutions that actually work for people with movement disabilities. So we have buildings today where we use occupant evacuation elevators. Now, occupant evacuation elevators are not your standard elevator. they do, they are extra safe and they are designed so that they can work also in a fire situation. So there are buildings today where we use occupant evacuation elevators. We also have buildings where we have something called areas of refuge. And an area of refuge is a safe place where you, if you have a movement disability, you can stay there and then wait for assistance. Now, the problem is that these are new features of buildings and traditional buildings don't have them and what we've been telling people for a very long time is that you shouldn't use the elevators for evacuation but all of a sudden you might be in a building where there is an occupant evacuation elevator and you should use it and one of the things that the project looks at is how do we then communicate that how do we communicate to people that for this particular building it is safe to use the elevators you're safe in the elevator lobby you can wait for the elevator to come and you can safely go to the ground floor

[3:39] Kevin Sofen: well it seems the psyche is so ingrained in our mindset how do you adjust and modify the psyche that's so entrenched in our brain?

[3:47] Daniel Nilsson: Well, we need communication systems that convey the fact that it is safe to use elevators. The problem today is we don't really know what the evacuees need in terms of information. So what we are doing in the project, we're doing something called co-creational development. So this is when we work with the end user. So in our case, that would be people who have movement limitations, movement restrictions. So it could be someone who's in a wheelchair. And what we do is we develop an environment in virtual reality where they can, in virtual reality, evacuate the building. And they use their wheelchair, they get to the elevator lobby, and there might be some signage there telling them that this is an occupant evacuation elevator. You are safe here and you can wait here until the elevator comes and you can take the elevator to the ground floor. The co-creational aspect of that is that we do this experiment like an interview. So as they evacuate this virtual building, we ask them about their perceptions and what information they're lacking and what type of information they would want. And once we've done this interview, we have a good idea of what their information needs are. So what would you like to know to trust this evacuation solution? The next iteration is then to implement that in the VR environment, which takes a bit of time, and then we go back to them again, and in VR, they experienced the new systems, and in an iterative way, they can then give feedback, can refine the system and in the end we end up with a system that makes sense. So people who go to an area of refuge or an occupant evacuation elevator for the first time get a system that they understand without too much prior training and also that addresses their need for specific information. So that's the co-creational aspect. One thing we, and this is something we haven't really done in the past, I've had plenty of examples from my own research where I've seen systems that have been implemented in buildings that don't really work. So people don't perceive them the way that the designers thought they would, since as a designer it's extremely difficult to take the mindset of the end user. For example, I'm a fire engineer. When I see an exit, I think exit. That might not be what people are thinking about when they're evacuating, since they're not fire engineers. So it's really difficult to take their mindset, and that's why they need to be involved in the design process.

[6:08] Kevin Sofen: And so you mentioned this co-creation development and then sort of and I think I hear meeting people where they're at how have you both kind of approached this like you know I had a conversation earlier you know having a cup of tea with people and meeting and you know going into people's homes and talking about what the challenges are what you're doing could you know elaborate on how you how you are kind of approaching getting this insight and communicating in the most effective manner?

[6:31] Daniel Nilsson: Yep so what we're doing as I mentioned is developing that VR environment which we can bring home to people. So you don't actually have to come to a VR lab to do the experiments. So it's easier to reach your participants. We've toyed with the idea of asking them without the VR environment, what they think. The problem is that unless you're in the environment, it's just your behavioral intent that doesn't really guarantee that's how you're going to behave in a real situation. So the closer you can get to a real situation, like being immersed in a virtual environment and seeing the actual geometry and systems mounted in that virtual geometry, it makes it much easier for you to interpret the situation and give us your feedback. So yes, you can approach people and just have an informal chat over a cup of coffee, but it's still going to be several steps of extrapolation from them having a cup of coffee and thinking about evacuation and saying what they need, rather than them being immersed in the environment, seeing what it looks like and saying, well, in this particular situation, I need this. And that's why we chose MDR.

[7:33] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. And Kevin, I'm interested in your thoughts in terms of that, of not only engaging with end users, but kind of again, what does this look like from putting into operational practice in terms of making sure that we can ideally support those that are, you know, whether it's disabled population or whether it's a, you know, various high-risk populations. What does this look like in practice to help those at most need?

[7:55] Kevin Frank: Yeah, so Fire and Emergency New Zealand is the fire service provider in New Zealand, We also have the evacuation regulations. So we're the regulator for that, for evacuation procedures and evacuation schemes for relevant buildings. So as a regulator, we need to be comfortable that these systems will actually be effective for the end user. And the other side of the project actually is developing design tools to support designers so that they can actually, or they're comfortable implementing these systems. And they're also gonna be confident that they're gonna be able to get it consented, get it across the line and stuff like that FENZ isn't going to have any issues with it. So the new design tools that are being developed is using the data from these experiments as an input and looking at evacuation sort of from the bottom up, as opposed to a lot of existing evacuation models are top down. So it sort of looks at group behavior, but this is looking at individual behavioral choices. And this is one piece of input along, and there's other research on crowd movement and things like that go into it. but also building new tools that integrate with other modern tools like BIM, so that because these systems will be complex, you know, there's moving parts, there might be smart notification and things where you need messaging to change depending on certain events that are happening, what's going on with lifts and things. So yeah, so that's the other side of the project is just making it so that there's, you know, designers can actually implement it.

[9:19] Kevin Sofen: Where are we at now with this? You mentioned there's some kind of this VR model, but is it in practice now? What are the most important next milestones that you see in the next, you know, one, 12, 36 months?

[9:29] Daniel Nilsson: Well, currently we've developed the baseline VR model, which is quite, it's a very Spartan environment. And, we've started doing some pilot testing just to, find some of the quirks as you always have some quirks when you develop your first VR environment. And then the testing in the next couple of months, the first iteration, and then we get feedback on what types of systems that people with movement disabilities would like. And then early next year, we've implemented that in VR, and then we go back to the participants and have them experience the VR. And then in, say, May, June, next year, we should have some suggested designs that we will present in papers and reports.

[10:09] Kevin Sofen: Well, I know you have a presentation to get here soon, so we'll wrap it up here quickly. The Institute of Fire Engineers, in your words, you know, we're here in this little Tim Tam, it's called Tim Tam Arena. It's actually where I've kind of self-proclaimed it now. What is the IFE in your words, and why is it an organization that's relevant in the Global Fire Service?

[10:27] Kevin Frank: Yep. So IFE represents fire engineers and also a lot of members of the fire service are involved. So it's, it's a little bit independent from say the likes of FENZ or, you know, some of the fire and rescue organizations in Australia as well, Fire and Rescue New South Wales or Fire and Rescue Victoria. So I think that allows us to have, you know, have a good combined voice and we can back initiatives and things like that, like this kind of research or another really good initiative in New Zealand has been the development of a fire engineering diploma to try and provide educational opportunities where you can pass on information about systems like, you know, what we're just talking about. So I think that's where the IFE really sits, being able to provide that unified voice.

[11:11] Kevin Sofen: I think that anything to add to that, Daniel?

[11:13] Daniel Nilsson: I could just echo Kevin's comment in particular, highlight the educational aspect, spreading the information and knowledge, having seminars, courses. it's important that we don't only focus on doing research, but actually spread information about their research. And I think IFE has a role to play there.

[11:32] Kevin Sofen: Well, and before you head off, final question for both of you. I've been asking everyone here on the podcast of is there a quote that your favorite quote or any words of wisdom that you live by within your organization or personal life that you could leave us with here today?

[11:44] Kevin Frank: So I heard a quote from another presenter earlier in the conference and I forget who it was unfortunately, But, so I'm also a volunteer firefighter and I'm just in the process of going through officer training, but that's really resonated with me. And the quote was, as an officer, don't just do something, stand there. Because when you're getting into the officer role, you're used to being the firefighter, you're used to being the doer, getting in there. But you really need to stand back and make sure you're looking at the whole scene. You're looking at, you know, what are the occupants doing? Do you need to send people in to get people out of areas of refuge? And if you're, if you get your, you know, you get stuck into a task, then you're not seeing the whole incident. So that's a quote that really stuck with it.

[12:24] Kevin Sofen: Well said. Yeah. Take that tactical pause and look at, see the whole picture.

[12:27] Kevin Frank: Definitely.

[12:28] Daniel Nilsson: Well said. My quote or a statement, I guess, would be related to buildings and how we design buildings today. And sometimes we forget that we are designing buildings for the people. We're not trying to design people for the buildings. So sometimes we implement solutions that are not understood easily, are not intuitive, but it should be the other way around. You should look at an evacuation system and without prior training, you should understand that you should use that exit or this elevator. And I don't think we're always doing a good job in that area. So we need to try and design the buildings for the people. And that requires us to understand how people behave and how they interpret situations.

[13:06] Kevin Sofen: Well, damn, this is some good final lines. Daniel and Kevin really appreciate the work you're doing. Daniel, you got to go run off to your presentation. So thank you very much, and I look forward to following your work. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening to this episode recorded alongside the Institute of Fire Engineers during the AFAC Show. If you found value in the conversation or learned something new, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out, share your thoughts, and let's keep the discussion going on how we can shape the future of smart firefighting.